


Another Piece of You

by nagi_schwarz



Series: Home and Away [7]
Category: Stargate Atlantis, Stargate SG-1, Supernatural
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-12
Updated: 2016-07-12
Packaged: 2018-07-23 01:53:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,366
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7461951
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nagi_schwarz/pseuds/nagi_schwarz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for the comment_fic prompt: "Stargate Multiverse, Any, <i>And it seems that every time / We’re eye to eye / I find another piece of you / That I don’t want to lose</i>."</p><p>Dean doesn't want to go to the Art Festival, does want to annoy Sam, and worries about Jonathan.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Another Piece of You

When Sam asked, for the hundredth time, for a ride to the Arts Festival in the park, Dean was genuinely tempted to strangle him. Sam was fourteen now and his voice broke all the time, and when he was in an especially whiny mode, the uneven pitch of his voice made his whining a hundred times worse. Dean had never gone through that awkward phase. One morning he’d woken up and his voice had been deep and sexy. That was his story and he was sticking to it.  
  
Jonathan rolled out from beneath the Shelby Cobra he’d been tuning up, wiped his hands on the rag hanging from his pocket. “I can give you a ride if you wait another thirty minutes.”  
  
Sam beamed. “Thanks, Jonathan. At least _some_ people around here have some culture.”  
  
But then Dad, elbow-deep in a Ford pick-up, said, “I thought you went by there yesterday.”  
  
“You know me,” Jonathan said easily. “I like to take a long time, looking at art. Didn’t get to see all I wanted yesterday.”  
  
That was true, so Dad shrugged and said, “You should be grateful, Sammy. Most boys Jonathan’s age wouldn’t put up with you.”  
  
“I know,” Sam said. “Dean barely puts up with me.” But he smiled and added, “Thanks, Jonathan.”  
  
“No problem, kid.”  
  
For some reason when Jonathan called him ‘kid’, it was affectionate enough that Sam didn’t protest the nickname. Granted, Jonathan sometimes called people older than him ‘kid’, so maybe he didn’t mean it as an age-based nickname.  
  
“I’ll come along,” Dean said.  
  
Sam’s eyes narrowed. “You said you didn’t want to go!”  
  
“But there will be hot artist chicks, right? So much more...open-minded and free-spirited than regular high school chicks.” Dean grinned, using the word ‘chicks’ to get a rise out of Sam, who was a staunch feminist.  
  
“Are you sure?” Jonathan asked. “I know it’s not really your thing.”  
  
“It is now,” Dean said, because anything that irritated Sam and made him pout fantastically was his thing.  
  
“You know what?” Dad said. “Go, boys. Have fun.”  
  
“But sir,” Jonathan began, gesturing at the car he was working on.  
  
Dad shook his head. “It’ll keep till tomorrow. I told the guy to come back tomorrow afternoon. I was a teenager once - I understand what summer does to you. Makes you restless. Go, before you blow something up or scare good folk away with your bickering.”  
  
Bobby, Dad’s business partner and one of the senior mechanics - he specialized in diesel engines - grunted his agreement without looking up from the engine he was wrenching on.  
  
“Let me get washed up,” Jonathan said, “and we can take my car.”  
  
“Can I drive it?” Dean asked, a little too eagerly if the way Jonathan laughed was any indication. Jonathan nodded and ducked into the little bathroom to change.  
  
When he emerged, he looked - nice. Clean jeans, not like the dusty kind he wore to work on one of his hobby cars. Polo shirt. Black leather jacket. He’d even combed his hair, like he was -   
  
Like he was going out on a date.  
  
Jonathan hadn’t said a word about Evan since that incident at his apartment a year and a half ago, although Dean knew Jonathan was still buying his artwork, had seen new pieces up on the walls when he went over to hang out and play video games or work on the newest hobby car. Now that Jonathan had his own house, Dean liked hanging out there a little better. There was more privacy, and if he left all of his Academy application stuff - practice essays, fitness requirements, training schedules - there, well, it was just convenient was all. Jonathan had set up a nice little gym in the basement, and he could play drill sergeant even better than Dad. Jonathan was more like a grown-up than a teenager in a lot of ways, but the way he’d gotten taller and bought his own place and started wearing more grown-up clothes was...weird.  
  
And now he looked like he was dressed up for a date, like he planned on meeting up with someone at the Art Festival.  
  
Dean didn’t care if Jonathan liked guys, but he was worried about older guys taking advantage. Jonathan seemed like he was older that so often it was easy to forget he was actually younger than Dean by a few months, that he was still just a kid. Like Dean.  
  
Not that Dean would ever admit that aloud.  
  
So Dean cleaned himself up as best as he could, brushed his hair, and made sure he looked good.  
  
Sam looked supremely unimpressed, but Jonathan let him ride shotgun when Dean took the wheel, so Sam’s mood lightened considerably.

It was late afternoon, so the air was cooler and a bit more humid from the clouds low in the sky, but it was warm enough that most of the girls who were out and about were wearing clothes that showed off their lovely bare shoulders and long, tanned legs.  
  
Dean parked the car carefully, handed the keys back to Jonathan, and together the three of them began strolling up and down the rows of booths and stalls. Dean was more interested in the people (girls) than the things, but whenever Sam found something interesting, Jonathan was on hand to look it over, smiling and nodding, listening to Sam. Dean wondered if Jonathan had any younger siblings or cousins of his own, because he was really good with Sam now that he was over whatever initial weirdness he'd felt. All Dean knew was that both of Jonathan’s parents were dead and he’d been emancipated when he was fifteen. His uncle, some fancy Air Force general, hadn’t been bothered to take him in. Jonathan had done all right by himself, but Dean remembered when he and Sam had gone to check on Jonathan once when he called into the garage sick. It was pretty obvious that Jonathan had no one else in his life.   
  
Maybe that was why he’d tried to seduce an older man. He wanted someone in his life who would take care of him.  
  
Dean liked the ladies just fine, but Jonathan was good people. If he needed family -  
  
A woman exclaimed, “Oh, Evan, it’s lovely!”  
  
Dean spun, following her voice, and - there. One row over, at a booth for Sheila’s Art Gallery, was none other than Soldier Evan, who had been on top of JD on his couch one time when Dean walked in on them.  
  
Only Evan was dressed in civvies and surrounded by a crowd of admirers, and he was ducking his head, looking bashful. Dean’s hands curled into fists. He remembered what Jonathan had said, how he’d invited Evan back to his place, how Evan had said he thought Jonathan was twenty-one, but that didn’t matter. No matter how good Jonathan was at pulling off the more mature act, anyone who’d looked at him for more than half a second when he was sixteen should have known how old he was.  
  
Dean spotted Sam wading through the crowd of admirers and curious onlookers, Jonathan with a hand on his shoulder so as not to lose him, and Dean darted after them. No way in hell was he going to let Evan anywhere _near_ Jonathan.  
  
Dean came up short when he saw a woman sitting on a stool, holding a little mirror and tilting her head this way and that, admiring the intricate geometric henna tattoo that covered her bald head.  
  
“Sheila,” the woman said, “I can’t thank you enough.”  
  
Sheila was a lovely black woman with smooth dark skin and bright eyes and amazing curves, and maybe she was a mite taller than Dean in heels, but he’d be willing to risk his ego on her.  
  
Only Sheila said, “Don’t thank me, thank Evan. He manages to have all kinds of handy skills squirreled away in that brilliant brain of his.”  
  
“How much do I owe you?” the woman asked, twisting around to look at Evan.  
  
“Nothing at all,” he assured her. “But if I could get some pictures, for my portfolio, that would be great.”  
  
The woman preened and batted her eyelashes at him. “Anything. I -” She reached up, didn’t quite touch the henna. “I wasn’t sure I’d feel beautiful again after my hair went.”  
  
Evan reached behind the table in the booth and came up with what looked like a professional-grade camera. He removed the lens cap and fiddled with the dials around the lens. “You’re just as beautiful now as you were when you first came over to speak to Sheila,” he said, “but if what I did helped you finally believe it, I’m glad.”  
  
He sounded completely sincere.  
  
Dean wanted to strangle him too.  
  
Evan directed the woman to pose, and he circled her, snapping away. Some of the other people standing nearby asked Sheila about Evan, who he was, what he did besides art, if anything. Dean slid closer, curious to know as well.  
  
Sheila only seemed to know that Evan traveled a lot for his day job and was only in town once or twice a year, never stayed more than a couple of weeks. His mother was an art teacher at a college in California and his sister was a tattoo artist, but that was all she knew, other than that Evan was a really nice guy. It sounded to Dean like she didn’t know Evan at all.  
  
Sam said, in a low voice, “It’s something some artists do for, you know, charity. Henna crowns for cancer patients.”

Jonathan, who’d inclined his head to hear Sam’s soft remark, lifted his head and gazed at Evan, and for a moment Dean couldn’t breathe. Because he’d seen that look before, when Dad was looking at old pictures of Mom. Evan lowered his camera and checked the digital screen on it, and when he lifted his head, he saw Jonathan. They locked gazes, and Dean knew this was that moment in romance movies, when the leading man and leading lady saw each other and everyone else faded away or vanished altogether.  
  
Only Jonathan was still a kid and Evan was an adult, twice Jonathan’s age, and should have known better.  
  
Then Sheila said, “Jonathan, there you are! So glad you stopped by again. Look, Evan’s back in town. How awesome is that?” She beamed at Evan. “He’s still your biggest fan.”  
  
“That’s nice,” Evan said faintly.  
  
Sam stepped up to the woman with the henna crown and asked if he could see the design. He quizzed her about how much input she’d had in the design, if any sections of the pattern had any particular significance to her, and she bowed her head so she could see.  
  
And just like that, Jonathan slipped out of the crowd, around behind the booth, and Evan went with him. Dean recognized soldier-stealth in both of them. Dad had it, in the most unexpected moments, but he’d never been able to teach it to Dean. Or maybe he’d never wanted to, because it was impossible to sneak out of the house when Dad was home.  
  
But Dean was good enough to follow Jonathan and Evan and get close enough to listen to them. Sure Jonathan was eighteen now, but if Evan did even the slightest thing to pressure him, Dean was totally calling the cops.  
  
“ - Back out in thirteen days,” Evan said.  
  
“That’s not a lot of time. Sailors on battle cruisers get more shore leave than that.”  
  
“We have one day a week as a designated Sunday, so we get plenty of shore leave. But coming home takes time if we want to save power or power if we want to save time.”  
  
“Do you get to see your family?”  
  
“They come out to see me.”  
  
“That’s nice.” Jonathan sounded subdued.  
  
“I got the package you left me,” Evan said. “I haven’t had time to read -”  
  
“Take them with you. Read them when you’re alone. I can’t send them to you, but if you take them, no one will search through them.”  
  
“Thank you.” Evan sounded equally subdued.  
  
Jonathan drew in a shaky breath. “It seems that every time we’re eye to eye I find another piece of you that I don’t want to lose.”  
  
“You won’t lose me.”  
  
“Are you kidding? Look at me. I can’t even touch you. Even if I looked...right, we couldn’t -”  
  
“Jonathan -”  
  
“I can’t go to where you are. And I can’t ask you to stay here.”  
  
“Don’t -”  
  
“I - _fuck_.”  
  
Dean sucked in a sharp breath. Jonathan never swore.  
  
“I wonder if this is what Sara felt like every time I came home, knowing I was going to turn around and ship out again in a few days or a week or two weeks, and she had no guarantee that I’d come home again.”  
  
“Sara?”  
  
“It’s in the letters. I - sorry. I just - I’ve waited so long. We both have.”  
  
“I know.” Evan’s tone was maddeningly gentle. “I’m here now. We have two weeks. I can come see you tonight. I remember -”  
  
“I’ve moved somewhere else. Bought a house. Got a mortgage. Doing the adult thing. You know.”  
  
“Give me the address, and I’ll be there as soon as I’m done helping Sheila.”  
  
There was a rustle of paper, and then Jonathan said, “Here. Read it. Memorize it. Destroy it. You know the drill.”  
  
“I do. See you tonight, Jonathan.”  
  
“See you, Evan.”  
  
Dean managed to get back out to the main thoroughfare between the rows of booths before Jonathan spotted him. Sam was engaged in earnest conversation with the woman with the henna crown. Jonathan slipped back into place beside Sam, watchful. Evan returned to speak to Sheila, showed her the shots he’d taken on his camera. He didn’t look at Jonathan once, didn’t even seem to notice him there.  
  
But Dean knew they were fully tuned in to each other’s presence, and when he and Jonathan and Sam walked away, the distance between them would gnaw at them like the icy jaws of the deepest canyon.  
  
Dad had described it that way once, when Dean asked what it was like, when he missed Mom.


End file.
